carbon clean out

[Dave WM]

Got bored today (that's dangerous for my car" so decided to try something. I bought a 16oz of gumout with pea fuel treatment. I have heard good things about PEA as a detergent that really removes carbon.

So on my test stand engine I rigged up a bottle with a feed control valve to the brake port in the intake manifold. Started the engine, well is seems my flow control was not really all that great, as I got a HUGE plume of smoke, lots of black gunk from every orifice of my rigged together muffler on the test stand. the engine ran fine, just hoping I did not get the fire dept called on me.

anyway it went thru the 16oz in about 1 minute. stopped smoking. I looked with a bore scope and things did seem cleaner but its really hard to tell. At least I don't think I hurt it. I will not be doing this on my car engine as it has a cat converter and I am sure all that oily gunk would destroy it. That being said I may try this again but with some injector Kleen next time. I suspect there is oil in the treatment bottle that was causing all the smoke.

[heyitsrama]

This product seems similar to seafoam, I used it on this old 240sx I had, it worked very well, I recall having a load of it flow into the system then turning off the hot motor to let it sit in the deposits. The idle was much better on the car.

 

if you do it right before sundown you can avoid the fire dept. HA!

[Zed Head]

1 hour ago, Dave WM said:

I suspect there is oil in the treatment bottle that was causing all the smoke.

Sorry for the over-response below, it's a slow day...

It's basically light oils and the PEA.  I found the MSDS on the web, below.  Like diesel or kerosene probably, hence the smoke.  No offense, but youtube is full of videos that show that those products don't really do much.  The carbon is baked on and condensed from years of heating cycles.  Found some cool stuff about petroleum distillates also.

The old school way was to squirt water in the intake manifold or carb with the engine running.  Probably came from somebody seeing how clean the cylinders by the head gasket leak were.

Kerosene or diesel might have similar effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerosene

https://3enoro1q5ve12ubndv13jkpk-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/510016-800001366-510104-Gumout-All-In-One-Complete-Fuel-System-Cleaner.pdf

https://echa.europa.eu/substance-information/-/substanceinfo/100.059.209

[ETI4K]

Never underestimate the greatest thing since sliced bread -  the placebo effect.  All that smoke MUST be beneficial. It works for me. ?

[Zed Head]

4 hours ago, Dave WM said:

So on my test stand engine I rigged up a bottle with a feed control valve to the brake port in the intake manifold.

Did you check all six cylinders?  The booster port is offset to the back.  I wonder if all six got the same wash.

Picture from here - https://www.autopartone.com/products/79-80-datsun-280zx-oem-2-8l-intake-manifold

Edited September 22, 2020 by Zed Head

[Dave WM]

only looked at #5, yea it was prob a waste of time and money, boredom gets me in trouble sometimes.

My real issue has been oil consumption on my running engine. It seems improved for some reason, I am over 1k miles on last oil change, oil is just now right at the very top of the dip stick hash marks. It was maybe 1/8" above. I presume its a very non linear measurement since the oil pan gets much smaller in volume as you go down, but still 1k and its right at full gives me hope I may get 1500k miles before having to add.

I have no external leaks, and nothing in the rad, so I assume its burning the oil in the combustion chamber, not enough to see smoke, but enough to consume. I realize some oil loss is to be expected, I would like to get to my 3k miles oil change with out having to add any oil. Not there yet. I assume the primary suspect would be the oil control rings since I have addressed the valve guide seals. My guess is the oil control rings may be somewhat gummed up or the drain back holes in the pistons could be gummed up. Clearly the correct procedure would be to tear down the engine and inspect, but I am  not that bored... yet...

oh one more thing, I bought some rotella T4 motor oil for diesel engines, thinking of using that for its detergents to clean, and it still retains the high zinc. So far I have only used VR1 and not sure if it has much detergent in it since its supposed to be a "racing" oil.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Dave WM

[ETI4K]

Another thing to consider, and I write this without do any research, is perhaps the cleaning effect is nonlinear.   If your internals are heavily laden, perhaps several cleanings would show promise.

If you controlled the feed rate of any cleaning chemical to very slow so the chambers never get slugged with liquid, you wouldn't have to worry about oil dilution, or bending a rod, etc.

An interesting experiment would be to start with clean oil in the pan, do a cleaning run and then compare before and after.  If the solvent/effluent don't obviously affect the oil, you might be able to do several cleanings.

FWIW, I have a BG fuel system service tool (#9210) (and OTC adapters) that easily controls solvent flow, and allows you apply air pressure behind the solvent for forced feeding (of injectors) or anything else.  Could be a lot of hooey, but you never know.  You anywhere near VA  ?

 

[gwri8]

You might have seen this guy on you tube before (Project Farm) but in case you haven't, he tests just about everything in side by side comparisons.  He' done a few on this subject alone and goes deeper than 90% of everybody else.  Heres one where he compares Sea Foam to Marvel Mystery Oil.

 

[siteunseen]

8 minutes ago, gwri8 said:

You might have seen this guy on you tube before (Project Farm) but in case you haven't, he tests just about everything in side by side comparisons.  He' done a few on this subject alone and goes deeper than 90% of everybody else.  Heres one where he compares Sea Foam to Marvel Mystery Oil.

 

Are you asking me to watch this vidya? You know I've got the patience of a rattlesnake right? 

Which one wins? I'm gonna guess Seafoam...

Thank you Greg, Cliff.

 

[Zed Head]

Whenever I think of carbon buildup I get an image of the backside of the valves in my head.  That's where you get a lot of flow disruption due to carbon buildup.  Most of the stuff in the combustion chamber will blow out during an "Italian tuneup", I think. 

Search "carbon valve buildup" and there's a bunch out there.  Here's one.  The backs of the valves get a good washing in our port injection engines at high RPM open throttle.  Gasoline is a good solvent.

https://team.valvoline.com/diy/truth-behind-carbon-buildup

On your oil burning - I found that when I had my old engine in the car that it would burn a lot of oil if I really went out and used the engine.  I was testing synchros and transmission fluids and transmissions for a while and would burn a lot of oil as I raced on to the on-ramps and over the country roads.  I also found that the engine ran better after a good beating, so I would give it a "tuneup" now and then just so that it would idle better around town.  It was fun, a good reason to flog it.  After I swapped engines, the new one didn't need that anymore and didn't burn more oil during a beating either.

So if your new driving style is lower RPM highway stuff you might see better oil mileage.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Zed Head
'

[conedodger]

I watched the 'vidya.' LOL! Neither of them really cleaned as well as I thought they might given the hype. Seafoam actually raised the compression by 9+% hot and 5% cold. Marvel Mystery oil lowered it hot and stayed the same cold. So, I guess Seafoam wins unless its just a transient effect... 

[Dave WM]

Yes I think my better oil use may be a factor of less reving it out. I have purposely been easy on it, most of the time spent around 2500-2700 rpm, shifting at about 3k. Perhaps that is a contributing factor as this is much more sedate than when I 1st got the car and was reving up to 4k at least with every shift.

I have been looking at the otc tools for on car fuel injection. may end up with on of those as they seem like a good idea, using injector Kleen and burning just the cleaner.

I am in Central florida, but work HQ is our of Chantilly va, although I rarely travel anymore.